


The Tree That Suggests

by Tathri



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Gore, Mental Health Issues, Platonic Romance, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-21
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-18 17:54:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3578568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tathri/pseuds/Tathri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six months separate Anteiku's destruction from the uneasy present. A fragile peace hangs over the ruins, the rubble a gravestone. Fueguchi Hinami decides that she must grow stronger, lest she lose herself in the growing abyss. A business card and a phone number are her admission slip: an indirect invitation to the organization responsible for everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Olive Branch

Trembling, birdbone fingers touched the glowing buttons for the sixth time that night. A rehearsal of action, always hesitating over whether or not to continue. She could have recited the combination in her sleep. The memorized code had been punched in halfway for the past two weeks, her shaking hands holding the cell's plastic cusp until she erased it. Several dozen times the digits stared back at her, a single squeeze away from connecting her to the person featured on the worn and wrinkled rectangle of card stock. The words were on the tip of her tongue, the intended introduction and the sentences following it.

But her throat grew tight, a chord sliding around her neck. The anxiety built like a collar, lashing her down to her thoughts. What if she couldn't speak? What if that person had forgotten her? She'd been unremarkable, bland, and indecisive. Compared to the hundreds of fans, making wonderful impressions, she'd stuttered and stumbled through both conversations. How could she even touch the toes of Takatsuki Sen?

Frustration piled into self-dares, bargaining, and excuses. What if she just closed her eyes, dialed, and hit call? The prospect of consciously throwing herself into the ravine was terrifying, so trusting her instincts was the best choice, right? Except she kept fumbling, nervously skimming the wrong surface and mashing it all up. Several mess-ups later, and her will to continue rapidly deteriorated. Tomorrow, she'd tell herself, plunging the cellphone back under a pile of pillows so that its screen wouldn't taunt her for having failed to once again. But even that tactic slowly crumbled. Chewing her cheek, she'd eventually fish it out and thumb over the sparkling, crisp display and rebuild her confidence. What if it didn't go through? That'd be enough to settle her racing nerves. Except then the call would be saved, and she'd risk exposing the whole gamble as a halfhearted attempt to get in contact.

Hovering over the final inviting green strip, she debated letting this night be like the last. Snuffing out another opportunity to drain the ugly substance that was clogging her senses, weighing down her mind, and keeping her in purgatory. It was a limbo she'd been slouching in ever since that day. It reminded her in a persistent drum beat of just how pathetic she'd been. Powerless, weak, unable to protect anyone. The shining surface tempted her. It was an escape from this. It'd only take the lightest glance, the softest touch, to extend a tiny plea for a way out of this. Her heart thundered, coaxing her fingertip downwards. Just a little closer. One skim from freedom.

Fueguchi Hinami pressed call.

The phone shuddered in her hand, vibrating as if in an anxious attempt to free itself from the vice of her curled fingers. Messages flashed across the smudged plastic, transforming from 'connecting' to 'calling'. Colourful light washed across her face, and finally the sound emerged. A thrumming noise of ringing pealing out in the small room she'd curled into.

One ring.

Two rings. Her hand was sticky from sweat, nervous jitters washing her in a mixture of excitement and difficult anticipation.

Three rings. It wasn't going to work out, was it? She halfways debated immediately jabbing escape, cutting the call off before it could tread much further.

Four rings. She'd listen for just one more. The conflicted anxiety in the pit of her stomach was churning and bursting into tottering butterflies.

The phone was stifled before it could manage the fifth.

" _Oooh, hello hello! Sorry for the wait, but you've reached Takatsuki Sen!  Who am I speaking with today~?"_ The sing-song, scatterbrained set of vocals sprang through the air with all the suddenness of an alarm bell. Sharp, curved noise wavering and fluxing before her ears, filling her with the sudden memory of their first introduction.

Hinami swallowed, shoving down cracked, raspy breath and willing her hands to stop fidgeting. 

"I-It's Hinami, ah, Fueguchi Hinami, do you remember? I-" Stiffened, forced words left her mouth, methodically phrasing the rehearsed introduction.

" _Hiiiinnammii-sweetie!"_   The wooing, sour-warbling voice practically leapt out of the tiny flip phone, informing the entire apartment of the conversation. In a heartbeat, all of Hinami's fears melted away with the single, ecstatic cry. " _I was so worried! After all that horrible news, and the panic! How've you been? Have you been eating well? Have you and your boyfriend been getting along~?"_

A barb of pain crept into her chest. Even the teasing remark had the power to twist the wound, scabbed over and sore. Hinami's free hand wandered to her throat, clasping the tissue there in an effort to keep the jarring from choking off her ability to speak.

"Actually... I was wondering if I could take you up on your earlier offer, Ms. Takatsuki. I-If it still applies, there's a lot I'd like to talk to you about." The syllables shivered as they left her tongue, pitifully soft and quiet.

A small period of silence stretched from the line, ended only with the creak of a reclining chair.

" _Hummhh... I'm guessing this isn't a topic we can discuss over the phone, is it, Hinami-sweetie? "_ Soothing and warm, the author's tone shifted a decibel lighter.

"Mmh." Splinters of agony wormed their way up into her mouth, rendering the affirmative into a mere acknowledging sound. Worse, embarrassment and shame closely bordered the hurt. After maintaining stern control for so long, why was all the repressed grief unraveling during the most important moment?

" _How about we meet tomorrow, Hinami-sweetie? Do you remember the place we had our first chat? I'll be there by noon, so we can have a long discussion without anything to worry about or bother us. Okay?"_ A nudge from the phrasing told Hinami that it wasn't just a gesture of mercy, but a genuine desire to reconnect. She could have found the spot blindfolded, it was one of Mr. Tsukiyama's favourites.

"Okay. Thank you, Ms. Takatsuki." The gratitude squirmed out as a croak, grateful words wrapped in vulnerability.

" _Hehe, don't mention it, Hinami-sweetie~. I have all the time in the world for you."_

* * *

Ice cubes floated in the dark, sweating glass of amber liquid. Its angled position cast an ethereal glow on the table, clogged with shadows and vaguely removed from the bright atmosphere that Anteiku had always lazily possessed. The nearest windows were far out of reach, slivers of sunny lustrous illumination only reaching them in threads. Sound was diminished by the booth's location, snug in a corner that the author had reserved with a vague flicker of her fingers. 

"Hinami-sweetie." The intimate distance enabled Hinami to pluck out all the cants and lulls of the author's harmonic pitch, how it lowered and stretched in an encouraging twist. 

The author, Takatsuki Sen, was resplendent. Loose, baggy sleeves snaked up the nape of her delicate wrists, while her tapering, thin fingers toyed with the straw jutting from the iced tea. The wrinkled jumper gave little real indication of the narrow body beneath, and Hinami secretly thought that the author didn't take full advantage of her beautifully slender frame. Sea-green clumped hair, poorly combed but naturally styled hung lopsided from a lazy tail, thick bangs cresting along the the spotless pale temple. Maybe the most striking part about the author was her smile, a smooth and perfect crescent, illustrating the depth of generous pink lips. A pair of rounded specs were laid across her nose, exposing the full-frontal wells of colour that were her moss-green pupils. 

Hinami knitted her fingers together, hanging her shoulders low, darting a gaze here and there. An earthy scarf poured down her blouse, tickling the seat where her skirt began and shoes ended. She inhaled, filling her lungs like she'd done when practicing yelling into the night. This time, it was to force the confession from where it had been festering away unbothered for months.

And yet, it was so, so easy. 

"I'm weak, Ms. Takatsuki. I couldn't change quick enough to help my Big Brother, I couldn't do anything to protect the people I cared about. Whenever I tried, it wasn't enough or it was too late. I'm the worst kind of person, aren't I? I wanted them to rely on me, but in the end I kept relying on everyone else." The digging slag felt putrid as it left her body in the form of that realization. She'd always been the person that others needed to rescue. She'd always been leaning on those that were shouldering too much. If she was just another burden, what was the point in living?

"Mmmh, Hinami-sweetie.. If you think you're weak, what do you think strength is?" The author shifted, elongating her body to one side of the booth, stretching in a way that was faintly eerie. "The power to save others, to defeat any enemy, and endure anything without folding?"

Hinami weakly nodded. Her gaze was nailed to the cup of cooling, dark sludge swimming around in the porcelain cup in front of her. She hadn't touched it once. Then, a soft chuckle trailed off that saber-slash mouth, sending a startled flinch down Hinami's spine. She glanced up hurriedly, but there was only a neutral smile tied to Ms. Takatsuki's lips.

"Hinami-sweetie, do you remember the last time we spoke here? What I told you about your Big Brother?" There was something indistinguishable hiding in the author's words, now. It was unfamiliar, new, and unsettling. Hinami's senses sharpened, her stance curled in even further, but she managed a second nod.

Ms. Takatsui reached up and plucked her glasses off the spot they'd edged down, folding the metallic arms into a crisscross. 

"Your Big Brother, no.. Kaneki Ken is strong, but not in any of those ways. I think strength comes from a different place altogether, Hinami-sweetie." In an absentminded gesture, the author plunged her straw down into the iced tea, sloshing around the melting cubes. "I think strength comes from realizing just how weak and powerless we are, from tasting the bottom. Grief, remorse, the thirst for revenge.. Those things are hollow."

"Huh?" The dull, uncomprehending murmur of Hinami's lips was her only reply, mental cogs grinding to process the sudden move in Ms. Takatsuki's verse.

"When we prop ourselves up on one emotional impulse, we're brittle, Hinami-sweetie. That's not really strength. A single flick from the right direction and we shatter apart. Even if we manage to succeed in satisfying whatever we were searching for in the first place, we can lose ourselves by the time we find it." Cold and methodical, the advice pooled in Hinami's mind as a purging disinfectant and a fertilizer. Just as it gnawed away at her indecision and self-loathing, it was beginning to nurse into existence an abnormal idea. "Would you humour me, Hinami-sweetie?"

"Mmh." Swallowing down the first mouthful of bitter, lukewarm brew, Hinami curled her free hand around her neck. The raw burn had returned, just like the evening before. It was scraping at the back of her mouth, and maybe if she drank enough it'd stop.

Takatsuki Sen's posture altered again, like the arcane cranking of a machine that was constantly readjusting itself to unknown and bizarre readings. She folded up, curling her legs inwards and to her chest and sat in the booth's recesses. For some reason, Hinami's body told her not to look elsewhere. She memorized the way that the author poised herself, peeling her hearing away from everything else and simply focusing on the way that Ms. Takatsuki existed.

"A long time ago, my entire life was focused on one person. No matter what happened to me, no matter what I did, I told myself that everything was justified as long as I could be noticed and accepted by that person. I rationalized my decisions based on what I thought I knew of them, and I tried everything in my power to piece together the perfect way for them to welcome me in. Do you know what ended up happening, Hinami-sweetie?" 

Hinami reminded herself to breathe. "N-No."

"I realized that I didn't know who I was anymore. I'd bent and broken myself into every possible shape that they might accept, but that didn't give me a name or a place in this world. I think even if that person had accepted me, I wouldn't have managed to find happiness. At that point, I hit the bottom. I didn't know what to do or where to go." Cocking her head to the side, Takatsuki Sen made an expression that Hinami had never seen anyone produce before.

Hinami's skin prickled, her senses sent off screaming bells of warning. Her heart stilled to the absolute minimum of movement.

"For a period after that, I wandered blind. Just like you are now, Hinami-sweetie. I was lucky, I only had to wait a few years before I discovered someone I could be again."

The taste of blood entered her mouth, metallic and crude. She'd been biting down on her lip without realizing it, drawing a thin but steady stream of crimson that tainted her teeth a shade of slippery garnet. A pervasive feeling of nausea surrounded the coffee sitting in her stomach. The temptation to excuse herself and retch it up in the washroom was growing stronger.

"What do I do?" The feeble question was little more than a meager whisper.

And Takatsuki Sen smiled.


	2. Sycamore Fig

Faint sniffles and hoarse exhales occasionally broke the dim of shuffling fabric. Her cheeks were damp and puffy, flushed a slightly rosy shade due to the excess of rubbing and tissue-dabbing. Her sleeves were a little crusty, which would have drawn an exasperated look from Touka or a patient folding from Big Brother. She fumbled a little in rolling up the ends, disguising the evidence of her emotional upheaval. The tears hadn't come all at once, but rather in a slow, strenuous grind. Hinami gritted her teeth and drove on, adding to the growing pile of discarded, crumpled white fluff.

The pang of loss stabbed, burrowing in and latching itself where she couldn't tear it free. At least not without leaving a gaping emptiness that would have emphasized how truly alone she was. She told herself not to rely on memories, to abandon the heap of tiny reminders that she would have retreated back into mentally weeks before. But it was hard, it stung, and a horrible crunch ate away at her chest. Releasing them all at once was impossible, so she resolved to let them slip free one at a time. Through the cracks of her clawing, clenching hands. The pictures were the first to go, ripped up and left in scraps in her room's trash can. Smiling faces, laughing expressions, and Anteiku's insides found their final resting place at the bottom of the round cylinder.

She wept when a small photo of Big Brother's shy, clumsy posture was discovered at the bottom of her notebook, meticulously preserved but forgotten about in the swarm of events. Big Brother's hair had still been a full, healthy shade of coal. The ironed, carefully maintained Waiter's outfit suited him, matching the contours of his slim core. If she stared long enough, the Kaneki of her last waking memory messily pasted over it. That Big Brother hadn't been clumsy, anymore.

His actions were severe, harsh, and measured. She'd been frightened by the way he moved, gliding across surfaces with all the effortless control of a phantom. That Big Brother had gradually lost the real and tangible. If she could reach through into the chemical ink, maybe she could fetch the previous Big Brother out, or instead disappear into the static world where nothing changed and everyone was still alive. Before she had the chance to succumb to bleary fantasy, she shredded it in half, eliminating the dream as soon as it bubbled to the surface of her consciousness. Strangely, it began to hurt a lot less once the mixed-in garbage grew. A numb, distant feeling began to tape down the distress. With every torn edge and abandoned memory, the weakness subsided. 

Fueguchi Hinami would become strong.

A lump of luggage sat unattended in the corner, filled with messily stuffed clothes and haphazardly piled-upon personal effects. It became depressingly obvious that the more she progressed, the less she had to take with her. A once massive pile of collections, side-projects, and distractions now were shoved into the overflowing garbage bin. She didn't need those things, anymore. All her childlike attachments and infantile hobbies had to be abandoned. She couldn't keep living in that world where a crippled sense of innocence was the only thing that kept her afloat. A few of her old books, well-read and cherished, were one of the last items among the bitter inventory. The cluttered shelves were mostly cleared out, revealing spots of hidden dust.

In glossy, bold print, the name **Takatsuki Sen**  blossomed out on several of the covers that Big Brother had given her. It'd taken her awhile to get used to the rigid, visceral prose that the author wrote in. The graphic content made them difficult to swallow in one sitting, but Hinami had been diligent to finish the same books that Big Brother so adored. The most recent novel was still sitting on her dresser, _A Hanged Man's MacGuffin_. A collection of short stories surrounding the lives of death row inmates, it'd become one of his most treasured favourites. The impressions from where Big Brother had made notations, folding the tips of specific pages for later reference had been carefully preserved. Hinami had been afraid to even open it, as if by doing so she'd break the seal on that capsule of his imprint. But now, she reached for it without a moment's hesitation.

The irregular, undulating characters just inside the cover dedicated itself to Big Brother personally, as if confirming an intimate connection between reader and writer. She'd been a little jealous of how well they communicated during the book-signing, trading back and forth underlying quips about the inspiration. It'd underlined how poor her own ability was to bridge the gap separating them. Compared to that relaxed, fluid small-talk, all her efforts had been miserably lackluster. Hinami lowered her eyes to the tiny indents, flipping through until she encountered the first snag.

It was a long section on the forty-seventh page, couched in the author's typical style of allusion and metaphor. Prisoner 182 was in the middle of a dream sequence, describing in depth how those around him felt like untapped sweets. Some were jawbreakers, rough and hard. Others were taffy, firm and chewy. Prisoner 182's favourites were those that resembled liquorice, long and stringy. But to Prisoner 182, his cell mates gave off the aura of uncooked meat. Sacks of soft, spongy flesh surrounding marrow that for reasons unknown to him appealed to a primitive hunger instead of the sweet curiosity.

Hinami pursed her lips. She switched to another section. Now the point-of-view had changed to an outlier in the group. Prisoner 151 was a notorious serial killer whose modus operandi involved the very specific killing of dog owners. Prisoner 151's childhood obsession had been the torture of animals, but specifically canines. Prisoner 151 claimed that out of all the animals in the world, canines were the worst because they loved and faithfully followed their master regardless of the type of person they were. Even people like Prisoner 151's parents, who had done unforgivable things, earned love and loyalty from their pet dog. Prisoner 151 judged that the lowest of the low didn't deserve anything in the world, especially not an animal's love, and that the unconditional attachment between humans and dogs was therefore something that should not exist. Hinami gently closed the book, clambering over the bedside to glance at the underwhelming disparity of accessories she was actually taking with her.

She wasn't going to need a luggage carrier, was she?

* * *

A glazed wind ran through Tokyo, scything its way across last inklings of Spring. The sun, drooping down the horizon, carried an unusually dark penumbra that it smeared across building and passerby alike. Those splattered droplets of shadow grew thicker as the minutes dragged by, extending ever more to suffocate the final droplets of light. Sun-soaked garbage was finally given a reprieve from the day's worth of rotting leftovers, stuffed in dumpsters lined with sticky cherry musk.

A candied scent.

The fetid bowls of the 11th Ward were a little less putrid from up high. The concrete veranda was an unusual place, secreted away on the flank of an abandoned apartment complex's side room. For the past few weeks, crimson-cloaked figures had been entering from the east wing, their scarlet tails fluttering in the windows and throughout the cracks in the stone. Blood vessels pumping much need vitality into a long-dead corpse. The spot was temporary, a currently hidden dot on the constantly sifting and fluxing map of the contested terrain. Its usefulness would vanish in a moment's notice, and with barely any warning the outpost would be set upon by scores of doves. Every member had grown used to that undeniable truth.

In Tatara's eyes, it was a small reprieve.

He wasn't sure when exactly he became accustomed to the capricious interests of his second. She favoured one location after the next with no real pattern, a random type of choice that prioritized gambling over strategy. He was almost tempted to prepare a dart board with a map of the wards for one of their informal chats. Fei would have laughed. Yan would have scowled. Somehow, it worked.

Off-key humming stretched from the parlor, a wandering tune that matched the hopping, skipping footsteps of padded feet.

" _Tataraaaa,_ " a broken hymn wrapped into his name. A bandage-woven fave materialized around his hip, hugged by a thin hood with two floppy ear appendages. They reminded him more of horns.

"Hmm?" The wine tinted mask slotted against his chin turned the noise into a metallic echo. Their conversations followed a formula that grew out of nowhere, but he knew how to translate.

" _I have a favour to ask~._ " The sickly-sweet, childish tone played at innocence, and the contours of her snugly-bound mouth quirked upwards into the familiar smile. Mischief and malice bound into a bow.

"A favour? Good or bad?" The pale overcoat sweeping his shoulders ruffled as Tatara half-turned, contorting faintly in the low wind.

Eto giggled cheerily, swinging her body forward as an erratic pendulum. In a single hop, she floated onto the precipice of the balcony, balancing on her tiptoes. The strips of medical wrappings carried flecks of dirt and grime, reaching up until they disappeared into the burgundy shroud clumping around her waifish body. She danced along the edge until reaching a perch, lowering herself to sit.

" _I have someone special I'd like to see join us_ _. Can you make sure they arrive safely~_?" Her legs began swinging. Left, right, left, right, left. 

Tatara blinked. Invitation to Aogiri wasn't necessarily a rare or unusual process, but it was typically handled by ward leaders unless in those very exceptional cases of executive interest. The vast majority of faceless, identical soldiers populating the Tree were fed into circulation through conscription, coercion, or a desire to be a part of an organization that looked after its own. But Aogiri's nature was in itself deceptive. The sheer reality of the wildly varying demands placed upon it limited the extent of the homogeneous whole's existence and thus, small teams acted in the occasional absence of a formal command structure. Widespread communications were shared only on a limited basis, in order to dull the impact of intelligence leaks and to promote autonomy. The upper hierarchy kept their hands clean, allowing local officers to handpick cells best suited to the situation. 

Bonds were common, but Eto's attachment was, more than any other member's, fickle. 

"Another CCG transport?" 

The doves had changed tactics since the harsh wake-up call that had been the raid on Cochlea. New routes were devised weekly, detainees were cycled through detention centers rather than remaining static, and escorts had doubled in size. A special investigator could be expected to accompany anything S-ranked or above, and it almost wasn't worth the risk of trying to work off scrambled reports. They now chanced stumbling into an ambush in every false report. 

" _Nuh-uh. It's 20th Ward business._ "  _  
_

"Hoh? Very well. I'll be off, then." 

The reason remained obscure, but picking apart Eto's thought algorithms would have taken an evening on its own and an incredible amount of diligence.

" _Tataraaa~._ " 

The wraith-like whisper catches his attention before he has the time to disappear, halting him at the thin, dirt-stained glass pane that serves as the portal between the balcony and the apartment. Notching his chin just so, he can catch the altered shape of Eto's new positioning out of the corner of his eye. She's whisked against a new corner, straddling the side and just barely in his peripherals.

" _Take Ayato with you._ "

* * *

Water trickled down a sharp collar line, dripping through the funnels in his scalp and along the cusp of twilight-drenched locks. It licked its path down his cheeks, draining away the sweat and slippery spots of half-dried blood, before finally pooling down his chin where it fell into the rusted drain. The grime-laced sink was filthy with dark chunks pried from his hair and jacket, but more the continual usage that had built up a tarnished layer of guck. The tap barely worked, so they were forced to use bottled non-carbonated stock in order to wash themselves and feed the coffee maker.

His right hand was quivering. In fact, the tremor was running along the entire sector of spindling nerves in his right side, coursing up from his shoulder to his toes. A testing clench bought a half-second delay, but his fingers obediently closed into a fist. He'd grown begrudgingly used to the post-action twitches, racing along his one side as though brought upon by insects crawling just under his skin. No matter how much he scratched, stretched, or laid still, the shuddering of his body continued for a good five minutes.

Ayato had learned to make convenient excuses for why he didn't care to chitchat after a job.

The mostly ruined flat's bathroom was his claimed space, reserved strictly for the cleanup. It contained a dinky bathtub-shower mix, neither of which worked, a medical cabinet, some '90s toilet, a really tired-looking laminate floor, and some dumbass picture of a dolphin. He had no idea what the motive behind washroom decorating was. The cramped space could barely fit one person, and the time that Naki had tried to poke his head in to fix his obsessive slicked-back hairstyle had made it excruciatingly clear that this was originally intended for a sad bachelor. Tiny, fluorescent bulbs served to fill the room with the atmosphere of a police interrogation stint, but it was enough to see. The mirror hoisted atop the sink reflected back five disobedient fingers.

Voices were clamoring behind the closed door, bickering back and forth about the latest dove. Ever since Eto had descended on high with the bright idea to crunch Miza and Naki in the same space, they bared their teeth at every occasion.  A competition over rights to the television channel was tonight's struggle, apparently. Miza wanted to watch the news, Naki wanted to watch some obnoxious channel that Yamori had liked. Ayato normally didn't care as long as the door stayed shut, responding to the occasional knock with a grumbled reply. Playing babysitter wasn't his job, plus Gagi and Guge were there as referees.

His head hurt. A tasteless ache, buzzing his vision full of dazed stars and white light. The room temperature water hadn't helped, rather it seemed to boil on the surface of his strained face. Had he been eating too little? There was meat if he wanted it, corralled down in the cellar. Yet, the prospect of hauling himself out of the room, wading through the shouting, dragging his feet down the hall and all the rest was too much for him to consider committing to. 

The jumping, fluctuating hitch in his hand grew worse. Ayato clamped his eyes shut, leaning forward to grip the messied sink's edge. The emptied plastic bottle in his left hand squeaked under the pressure, folding into a mangled shape. Focusing on breathing helped the hammering in his skull a bit, drowning out the drilling knock with the sound of his forceful intakes. Even with the sour air in the washroom, it was easier than showing weakness outside. The moment he faltered, tripped up, or worse, collapsed, it'd be over.

The door opened.

A jolt of pain eclipses his one and only hanging thread of patience.

"OI!" The barked protest is loud, nearly a holler. The closest thing in sight, currently the crunched bottle in his left hand, is thrown at the intruding offender.

It smacks Tatara's chest with a pathetic impact, tumbling down to the floor where it bounces off towards the tub. The half-veiled face of Ayato's superior is a neutral plane of non-emotion, lacking even the most basic characteristics of human expression. A simple world of indifference. Dimly, Ayato realizes that the shouting from the room has been strangely absent for about a minute now. 

Colour drains from Ayato's face. He averts his eyes, staring at the grungy space separating the tiles beneath his feet. His right hand is still glued to the sink, palm moist and slippery.

"Ayato." Tatara says his name in a tone that's impossible to read. Blood is thundering in his eardrums. He doesn't dare look up, or try to find where the miserable excuse for a weapon went off to. The trembling feels like it's at its worst, threatening to overthrow his control and reduce him to a fit of shaking.

"Let's go. Pick that up on your way out." Gesturing vaguely in the direction of the tossed bottle, Tatara reverses in place and exits the apartment in barely five strides, pale coat rippling behind him.

Ayato's mouth feels barren and tastes worse. He tries to think of a response, fails. Tries again, fails again. Lacking anything substantial, he chews on his lip, shoves his weakened right hand into his jacket pocket and snatches up the shitty bottle with his left. On the way out, he shoots the momentarily terrified Naki and Miza a look of complete murder. 

Somehow, he knows he's going to hear Naki's hysteric, high-pitched laughter before he leaves the building. 

**Author's Note:**

> Reviews are always welcome! My writing style is a little abstract, so let me know what you think.


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